Chapter 6 - The Mole in Ward 4
At 11:30 p.m., the rain had turned into a freezing drizzle.
The unmarked black SUV idled silently in a dark, narrow alley three blocks from Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Lily sat in the passenger seat, staring at the towering glass and steel structure. It had been her second home for years. Now, it looked like a fortress.
She wore the navy-blue scrubs and a stolen ID badge clipped to her collar.
Cole handed her a small, sleek earpiece. "Put this in your left ear. Keep your hair over it. Tap it twice if you need me to breach."
Lily inserted the device. It crackled slightly before going silent.
"Comms check," Mercer’s voice resonated in her ear, smooth and calm. He was back at the safehouse, monitoring the hospital’s hacked security feeds on Cole’s laptop.
"I hear you," Lily whispered.
"I have disabled the cameras in the south hallway and the loading dock," Mercer informed her. "But I can't touch the internal alarms without alerting security. You have to rely on your badge."
"I know the routine," Lily said, opening the car door and stepping into the chilling rain.
She walked quickly, her head down, mimicking the exhausted, slumped posture of a double-shift nurse. She reached the rear loading dock, swiping the cloned ID badge at the service elevator.
The light blinked red. Then, a second later, it flashed green.
The heavy metal doors slid open. She stepped inside and hit the button for the fourth floor.
"I'm in," Lily whispered.
"You have six minutes until Vance takes his scheduled smoke break," Mercer's voice instructed over the comms. "He's currently at the nurses' station on Ward 4."
The elevator hummed as it ascended. Lily’s hands were clammy. She wiped them on her scrubs.
Ding.
The doors parted. The fourth-floor corridor was dimly lit, the night shift notoriously understaffed. The air smelled of iodine and floor wax.
She moved quickly and quietly, staying close to the wall. She bypassed the main intersection, catching a glimpse of Vance sitting at the central desk, rubbing his temples.
She slipped into the adjacent hallway. Room 402 was at the very end.
"He's moving," Mercer warned in her ear. "Vance is heading for the stairwell. The floor is clear."
Lily reached the heavy door of Room 402. It was a restricted access biohazard storage room.
She punched in the four-digit keypad code: 7-2-9-1.
The lock clicked heavily. She pushed the door open and slipped inside, letting it shut behind her.
The room was freezing. Rows of massive red plastic bins lined the walls, waiting for the morning pickup.
"Which one?" she whispered frantically.
"Check the bin marked 'Surgical Waste B', near the back left corner," Mercer directed.
Lily knelt beside the massive red container. She popped the hermetic seal, grimacing as the foul smell of rotting tissue, old blood, and chemical preservatives hit her face.
She dug her gloved hands through layers of heavy plastic bags, pushing aside discarded surgical drapes and empty saline bags.
At the very bottom, wedged beneath a stack of used wound vacs, her fingers brushed against something hard and rectangular, wrapped in a sterile blue drape.
She pulled it out.
It was a thick, black, leather-bound notebook.
"I got it," Lily breathed, clutching the ledger to her chest. Relief washed over her like a tidal wave.
Suddenly, a loud, mechanical CLACK echoed through the small room.
The electronic deadbolt on the door had just engaged from the outside.
Lily froze. She scrambled to her feet and grabbed the door handle, pulling it hard. It didn't budge.
"Lily?" Mercer’s voice barked in her ear, the calmness instantly gone. "What happened? My feed just went black."
Before she could answer, a voice drifted from the small overhead intercom speaker in the corner of the ceiling.
"I knew you'd come back for it, Lily," Arthur Vance’s voice echoed coldly in the small room.
Lily slammed her fist against the reinforced glass of the door. "Arthur! Open this door!"
"You always were too dedicated to your patients," Vance continued, his voice trembling with a mix of guilt and terror. "I'm sorry, Lily. I really am."
"Arthur, whatever they promised you, they're lying!" she yelled.
"They promised to clear my debts," Vance replied over the intercom. "The Volkov men are coming up the freight elevator right now. Don't fight them, Lily. Just give them the book."
In her earpiece, she heard Mercer swearing violently.
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"Cole is in the building," Mercer said, his voice deadly and sharp. "Get away from the door, Lily. Hide."
Lily backed away, clutching the heavy ledger as the sound of heavy boots began to thunder down the hallway outside.
